Music fans rub shoulders with generals and artists at Kyiv festival, united by inescapable war

This year, Ukraine’s largest music festival struck a different chord. Gone were the international headliners, the massive performance halls and the hundreds of thousands of visitors. Instead, the country’s most beloved local artists graced the stage at the Atlas Festival, which was erected on a shopping mall parking lot. It was the only option that contained a shelter large enough to contain the 25,000 people – that organizers predicted would attend – in the event of an air raid.